The present invention relates to the art of applying or dispensing fasteners.
A wide variety of methods and apparatus for applying fasteners have hitherto been proposed. Of these, it is known that U.S. Pat. No. 3,103,666, U.S. Pat. No. 3,650,451 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,924,788 are typical of patents showing such apparatus.
All of these apparatus employ a gear mechanism as means for feeding fasteners.
It is to be noted that a fastener assembly is generally constructed in a manner such that a multiplicity of fasteners are connected via connecting pieces to a common connecting rod in the form of the teeth of a comb.
Such fastener is also referred to as a tag pin.
Each fastener has a head section at one end of a filament section and a cross bar section at the other end thereof.
It is also to be noted that the fastener assembly is integrally formed of a synthetic resin such as nylon or the like.
Normally, the head section of the fastener is approximately 1.0 mm in thickness, 10 mm in length and 3.5 mm in width, whereas the cross bar section is approximately 1.0 mm in diameter and 10 mm in length.
The length of the filament section ranges from 7.0 mm to 125 mm, although it may vary depending upon usage.
Thirty-five to 100 fasteners are connected, at 1.2 mm to 2.0 mm intervals, via connecting pieces to a common connecting rod in the form of the teeth of a comb.
Accordingly, the fasteners are likely to be entangled with each other. In addition, the fastener assembly per se is bulky. Hence, there is a disadvantage that various difficulties are encountered in the course of packing or using them.
In order to eliminate the foregoing disadvantage, there is proposed a closely interconnected fastener assembly in which cross bar sections of adjacent fasteners are arranged in slightly spaced relation to each other or a contact fastener assembly in which substantially no space is left between the cross bar sections of the fasteners. (See U.S. Pat. No. 4,417,656)
For example, such contact fastener assembly is remarkably compact as compared with a conventional fastener assembly in which the fasteners are sparsely arranged, the length of which is two thirds to one half of that of a conventional fastener assembly on condition that the number of the fasteners is the same therebetween.
As mentioned above, since the distance between the adjacent fasteners is remarkably shortened in the closely interconnected fastener assembly or the fasteners are in contact with each other in the contact fastener assembly, the distance between the adjacent connecting pieces presented between corresponding fasteners and connecting rod is narrower than the pitch of the teeth of the gear in a feed means provided in a conventional fastener dispensing or tag attaching apparatus.
Accordingly, such feed means in conventional fastener applying apparatus is incapable of feeding the fastener assembly.
It should be mentioned that the construction of the closely interconnected fastener assembly or contact fastener assembly is such that the cross bar sections of the adjacent fasteners are directly connected with each other, thereby avoiding the connecting rod and connecting pieces for connecting this connecting rod with the cross bar sections of the fasteners.
The fastener dispensing apparatus of the present invention is directed to the latter, namely, the contact fastener assembly.